Pawning, generally, is something other than a lopsided contest between loansharks and the destitute. Most of Smith’s customers, he says ninety percent of them, come back to redeem the goods they’ve left with him for collateral on loans. That is, after all, what pawning is all about — the giving of collateral in exchange for a small, short-term loan. “We’re the poor man’s bank.”

At 6:00 a m., after I cracked open the door to the back room and hit the lights. I would be greeted by a cacophony of barks, ranging from the shrill yips of the toy poodles, chihuahuas, and puppies to the booming bass attacks of the shepherds, beagles, and bassets. “Quiet!” I would yell at the top of my lungs, which might or might not shock them into silence for a minute or less.

Sousa says he recently flew to Thailand in the coach section of the airplane, while Kieren of the Tribune enjoyed the amenities of the first-class cabin. “So when we arrived, she emerged from first class fresh and rosy. She hadn’t paid a damn thing, whereas I [the Union] had paid several thousand dollars to, again, wind up as a basket case."

Rossi had us trooping off to the Academy Theater to see Alain Resnais’s La Guerre Est Finie, a pastiche of political correctness and sensuality. The commingling of radlib politics with grainy romance, featuring some genuinely innovative photography and editing, was not lost on us.

“This is high-quality tract housing. Each stage depends on the previous stage. If you’ve got a foundation that’s out of square, then the house is going to be out of square. The cabinets are square and they’re going to be out of square. They’re going to have to caulk that to cover that up. So the mistakes that are made in each stage follow all the way through to the end.”

"I learned a lot about French pastries. Different ways to make them, different formulas. You could take instant custard that would taste almost like real custard, and all you got to do is add milk to it. Well, when you learn real fancy ways, the way the French really make it, a lot of time involved there. You can be faster, but you still got to be to perfection."